To Örebro University

Physical education (PE), and specifically the teaching area of dance, has been identified as an important pedagogical setting within which young people develop creativity. Creativity is thus an important aspect of schooling. Several studies have suggested however, that dance is seldom taught in PE in ways that acknowledge creative aspects of movement learning, and that students in physical education teacher education (PETE) receive insufficient training in the area of dance. Very little research has been conducted specifically on how teachers and PETE students understand the subject tradition of creative dance. The aim of this paper is to create insights into what PETE students express and experience in creative dance lessons where we specifically explore a pedagogy based on imitation. To address this aim, empirical material was generated through observations and logbooks during a pedagogical sequence of creative dance at a Swedish PETE institution. Deleuzian concepts of palpation and experimentation were used to guide our analysis. The results of this study show alternative ways of understanding what can happen when students participate in creative dance lessons. Our findings contribute to researchers' and teacher educators' understandings of students' experiences of working with spaces of creativity in PETE, and how these experiences can be used in teaching of creative dance.

Previous research shows that enacting a new curriculum is a complex process. Teachers can be enthusiastic and committed to new curricular objectives, but they can also experience frustration and disappointment. Scholars have suggested that teachers who perceive lack of support, or tensions between their personal philosophies and the educational principles underpinning a new curriculum, struggle to enact new curricula in line with their intent. Our purpose in this article is to illustrate how two Physical Education (PE) teachers experienced the enactment of a new official curriculum. An action research approach was used as design of the study. Researchers cooperated with two PE teachers for 18 months. The empirical material consisted of 50 sets of field notes from the two teachers' teaching lessons, transcripts from one semi-structured qualitative interview with both teachers following the completion of the school year. The material also consisted of reflection logs produced by the teachers containing written notes about their experiences of the curriculum enactment. We used literature on educational change (Fullan, M., & Hargreaves, A. (1991). What's worth fighting fore? Working together for your school. Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation) as our theoretical framework. Our findings show that the teachers experienced the curriculum enactment in contradictory ways. Shifting from previous PE practices that focused on sports activities and emphasized teacher instruction, to pedagogical practices informed by the new PE curriculum (including sociocultural perspectives of learning and assessment), led to uncertainty, surprise, satisfaction, as well as distrust. Our findings also showed that the teachers' experiences of the enactment were influenced by perceived gender biases. We argue that teachers' beliefs and the teaching culture were particularly influential dimensions regarding the two PE teachers' experiences of the curriculum enactment. Practitioners and researchers attempting curriculum enactment in the future should pay careful attention to such dimensions, especially given that tensions and uncertainty often occur during any educational change.

Various attempts have been made to emphasise the educational purpose of physical education (PE). Ennis (2011) has noted that understandings of content shift depending on curriculum. The aim of the paper is to explore what the enacted content becomes when the Practising Model is implemented in PE. Four PE teachers, in two Swedish secondary schools, enacted the Practising Model with five classes for 10–17 lessons. Qualitative data were generated in the form of video recordings of lessons, interviews with students and teachers, and student-produced material. The findings are presented as three main content areas: (a) general-subject content, typically teacher-initiated and involving planning and evaluation; (b) subject-specific content, largely student-initiated and encompassing the adoption, appreciation, exploration, understanding, and grasping of movement qualities; and (c) persona-developing content, focusing on character development through persisting and daring. A discussion of the findings using Categorical Bildung is presented, illustrating the added value the enacted content may bring students in terms of their Bildung. The study highlights the diversity of content engagement and the fluidity between content categories. This diversity also introduces a challenge in the changing relationship between content and teaching. The organising centre for PE and its relation to content are discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

The aim of this paper is to identify the dominant discourses of health and wellbeing that are offered in health education in Swedish schools. Issues of health and wellbeing are covered mainly in four school subjects in Sweden: physical education and health, home and consumer studies, biology, and social studies, and therefore, we interviewed teachers from those subjects to generate data. Six interrelated health discourses were identified from the data. All discourses were, however, also embedded within a health discourse with a comprehensive description of health as physical, psychological and social wellbeing. Results suggest that schools offer a Western and White discourse of health and that some content is overemphasised, and some is missing in relation to other non-dominant discourses of health and wellbeing.

Background: Various forms and types of knowledge have enjoyed legitimacy in physical education (PE) since sports techniques became the orienting idea for PE in economically advanced countries in the mid-twentieth century. The forms and types of knowledge granted legitimacy at any one moment are dependent on a range of socio-discursive factors. In this paper, we consider ball games knowledge within the Swedish PE teacher education context in the 2020s.

Purpose: The specific aim of the paper is to generate insights into how ball games experts within PE teacher education define legitimate ball games knowledge. Our proposition is that by examining the ways these experts define ball games knowledge, physical education teacher educators may develop more nuanced understandings of how and why knowledge comes to be seen as legitimate.

Methods: In order to conceptualize experts' knowledge of ball games, Shulman's concepts of content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) were employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two teacher educators who specialized in ball games education from three different PETE institutions in Sweden (n = 6). The interviews focused on the PETE educators' understandings of ball games and how they prepared preservice teachers to teach ball games.

Findings: The PETE educators defined ball games CK as: (1) understanding of games as a cultural phenomenon, (2) tactical understanding of games, and (3) embodied understanding of how to play ball games. The PETE educators defined ball games PCK as: (1) using ball games to meet different curricular goals, (2) focusing on tactical understanding with a small number of concepts, (3) adapting teaching so that all pupils are included, and (4) managing competition.

Conclusions: Four issues related to the legitimacy of this knowledge are raised. The issues concern the ways in which: (1) a complementary sport discourse is permeated by educational discourse to achieve legitimacy; (2) CK and PCK are designed to achieve legitimacy with different stakeholders; (3) public health discourse is not used to develop legitimacy for ball games knowledge, and (4) historical factors continue to affect experts' understandings of ball games. The central conclusion drawn from the investigation is that ball games experts engage in a complex process of discursive negotiation when defining the knowledge with which they work.

Purpose: To (a) present a theoretical framework that describes how learners' movement habits become relevant in the development of movement capability and (b) present data that illustrate how this process occurs in practice.

Method: An investigation with preservice physical education teachers was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved examining participants' movement habits, and the second phase involved examining the participants' development of novel capabilities in the context of unicycling.

Results: Empirical materials from two participants are presented as case studies. The cases demonstrate how different sets of movement habits interact with novel tasks, making the demand for creative action more or less likely. The cases also demonstrate how subjective and physical elements are interwoven. Finally, the cases provide insights into potentially productive habits for movement learning.

Discussion/Conclusion: The paper is concluded with pedagogical implications, including a consideration of how crises might be managed in educational contexts.

Background: Despite increasing support for models in physical education, ambiguity exists concerning the role of teachers in the implementation of models. Very generally, some scholarship seems to suggest that teachers should work as technicians and use models in an instrumental manner. Other scholarship suggests that teachers should use models in ways that are responsive to the contexts in which they are working. This suggestion positions teachers more as craftspeople. Ambiguity is problematic given that teachers have been identified as 'key players' when it comes to the implementation of models. How teachers are positioned in research may have a significant impact on further research and pedagogical practices.

Purpose: This paper has two specific aims. First, we aim to provide a detailed map of how scholars have positioned teachers within physical education models literature. Second, we aim to provide a reinterpretation of our findings using Deweyan theory.

Data production: The scoping review conducted here is based on the framework provided by Arksey and O'Malley [2005. "Scoping Studies: Towards a Methodological Framework." International Journal of Social Research Methodology 8 (1): 19-32]. It involved: (1) the development of a research question which was: in which ways does PE models literature position teachers? (2) the identification of potentially relevant literature through searches of the Web of Science, SPORT Discus and Google Scholar databases. The search terms used were: 'Physical education' AND 'Models-based practice;' OR; 'Pedagogical model;' OR; 'Instructional model;' OR; 'Curriculum model;' OR; 'Model;' OR; 'Teacher,' and literature needed to be published between 2010 and 2021 in English, (3) the selection of literature for the review. This occurred as an iterative process that involved going back and forth between the potentially relevant literature and our research question, (4) charting of the literature, done through inductive thematic analysis. This involved a close inspection of the included texts and the identification of recurring types of positioning in the corpus, and (5) a theoretical reinterpretation of teacher positioning achieved in models scholarship.

Findings: In the physical education scholarship on pedagogical models, teachers are positioned as: (1) resistant to using models; (2) incapable of using models correctly; (3) mechanical reproducers of models; (4) struggling implementers of models; (5) needing models to change their ordinary practices; (6) capable of using models correctly with support; (7) adapters of models, and (8) collaborators with researchers when implementing models.

Discussion: Three issues are raised for discussion. The first relates to the potential disempowerment of teachers achieved by models. The second relates to the relationship between teachers and researchers. The third relates to how models themselves are conceived.

Conclusion: The paper is concluded with two general reflections that follow from the issues raised in the discussion.

This conceptual paper takes a departure in the concept of powerful knowledge, developed by Young, M., & Muller, J. (2013. On the powers of powerful knowledge. Review of Education, 1(3), 229-250. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3017). Powerful knowledge can in short be described as knowledge that people need to understand and change the world. The aim is to examine when movement capability, as theorized through empirical research, becomes powerful. To delineate our perspective on knowledge, the concept of knowledge and knowing as theorized by Polanyi, M. (1962. Personal knowledge. University of Chicago Press) and (Carlgren, I. (2020). Powerful knowns and powerful knowings. Journal of Curriculum Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2020.1717634) is outlined, showing that movement capability comprises ways of knowing which are neither merely physical (the doing) nor mental (the thinking), but rather a fusion of both. With a widened understanding of powerful knowledge as including the knowing involved in the doings, we illustrate through empirical examples from previous and ongoing research, and how physical education can offer students possibilities to develop powerful movement capabilities.

Background: Physical education (PE) teachers in practically all countries are expected to help their students develop movement capability. To achieve this objective, teachers need certain knowledge and competencies. The question of how PE teachers should develop their capacities to achieve this task has received only limited research attention.

Aim: The broad objective of this paper is to contribute to the literature on how PE teachers can develop knowledge and competencies in the area of movement capability related to students' learning. The specific aim is to identify aspects of the design of instruction in physical education that enhance teachers' actor-oriented transfer of movement pedagogy knowledge, during a collaborative professional development intervention.

Method: The study is an analysis of three conducted learning studies in PE at upper secondary schools in Sweden. The studies involved seven PE teachers from two different schools. Our empirical material consists of (a) notes from team meetings (n = 14), (b) lesson plans (n = 9), (c) video-recorded and transcribed lessons (n = 9), and (d) results of students' learning outcomes (n = 9).

Findings: PE teachers' analysis of their own teaching sequences in teams supported their actor-oriented transfer of movement pedagogy knowledge, which developed their abilities to further elaborate their instruction in new teaching situations. Moreover, teachers gained insights into how to further develop the quality of instructional design as expansions of earlier experiences. Lastly, a relationship between PE teachers' actor-oriented transfer and students' increased learning of movements was found.

Conclusion: Our conclusion is that collaborative professional development for PE teachers, which supports actor-oriented transfer, should be offered to enhance teachers' movement pedagogy knowledge.

Scholars have long questioned the impact of teacher education programmes. Persistent claims are that pre-service teachers have fixed ideas about pedagogy when they enter training and that they become enculturated once in the profession. Within physical education (PE), similar concerns have been raised with respect to ball games. Research suggests that pre-service PE teachers typically have substantial experience of ball sports and find it difficult to implement non-traditional ball games pedagogies when they enter schools. Against this background, the aim of the study is to explore how pre-service teachers recontextualise ball games as pedagogic discourse in their transitions from university to school placement. Bernstein's pedagogic device and pedagogic discourse are employed as the theoretical framework. The investigation focuses on a Swedish PETE programme and the participants are six pre-service teachers. The empirical material consists of written assessments, observations of the pre-service teachers' lessons during school placements, and individual interviews. Findings suggest that the pedagogic discourse of ball games at the university was aligned with course learning outcomes and included the need to communicate goals, adapt and modify teaching, and combine different approaches. The pedagogic discourse at school placement involved traditional ball games, minimal curriculum references, progression in two or three lessons, and inclusive, enjoyable lessons. Factors that regulated the discourse were: familiarity with the pupils; the conceptualizing of inclusive teaching; norms regarding ball games in PE; expectations of the pre-service teachers; and the framing of ball games education in PETE. Recontextualising rules highlight challenges in transitions related to ball games.